Delicate Issue Confronts Candidates

August 20, 1989|By NANCY COOK Staff Writer

For the first time in the nine years that Del. Harvey B. Morgan, R-Gloucester, has been running for office, he finds himself having to explain his stand on a delicate topic he'd just as soon avoid: abortion.

"I can't remember it ever being an issue before," said Morgan, who groaned when a reporter called him to talk about his primarily pro-choice position.

In Newport News, Republican Aubrey Fitzgerald thought the abortion issue was so important in his bid to become a state delegate that he called a press conference to stake out a position guaranteed to offend few voters. He called for a statewide referendum on all abortion questions.

And in the gubernatorial contest, both Democrat L. Douglas Wilder and Republican J. Marshall Coleman have been arguing over who has flip-flopped the most on the issue since the July U.S. Supreme Court decision granting states some power to limit abortions.

Wilder is pro-choice, while Coleman is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

Around the state, from House of Delegate campaigns to races for statewide office, politicians are suddenly finding themselves confronted by the sensitive politics of abortion in a way they never have before.

While it has been a sensitive issue for years, this is the first time since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortions that states have been empowered to do anything to restrict them.

The issue also is emerging with an unexpected twist. While opponents of abortion have been the most vocal in recent years, state and national polls conducted in July show the majority of voters believe the choice should be up to women in most circumstances.

A July poll conducted for several state news organizations by Mason-Dixon Opinion Research Inc. showed that 62 percent of Virginia voters believe women should have the right to a legal abortion in most instances, even though many believe it is morally wrong.

Until those polls came out, some lawmakers said, they thought their pro-choice position left them in the minority. That was the case with Del. Clifton A. Woodrum, D-Roanoke, who is in charge of candidate development for the House Democratic caucus.

"You can imagine my surprise when I saw that polls are showing people generally feel it is a health-care issue that should be determined between the doctor, the patient and the patient's family ... and that government ought not to be a party to that decision."

Just how much of a factor the issue will be in the November election is uncertain, because this is uncharted territory.

So far, most candidates say, it has surfaced as an issue, but not a major one.

However, if pro-choice advocates have their say, it soon will be. By fall, the traditional start of the campaign, they plan to be organized and ready to rally behind candidates who are committed to keeping abortion legal, just as pro-life advocates have been rallying behind their candidates for years.

"We are telling people now is the time to become one-issue voters," said Lisa Persikoff, executive director of the Peninsula chapter of Planned Parenthood. "In the past, we haven't done that. That's how the pro-life people got ahead of us. Now, the tables are turning."

The issue, she said, will be particularly important in the gubernatorial campaign.

At Planned Parenthood, as well as at other organizations that support abortion rights, directors say their phones have rung steadily since the Supreme Court's Webster decision giving states limited rights to restrict abortions. At the Tidewater chapter of the National Organization for Women, attendance has nearly tripled.

Pro-choice advocates, as well as political observers, said it took the Supreme Court to mobilize supporters, who now see their rights being threatened.

"The irony of the Supreme Court decision has mobilized voters in a way I haven't seen the Roe v. Wade decision," said 1st District Democratic Party Chairman John McGlennon. "I've been surprised how many people have told me they are going to decide the election on that issue."

On the surface, the strength of the pro-choice movement would appear to bode well for Democrats, who generally have adopted pro-choice stands, compared with pro-life stands written into the 1988 national Republican platform.

Coleman, a former pro-choice advocate turned pro-lifer, said before the Supreme Court ruling that he favored banning abortions for women even in cases of rape and incest. He now says, though he still opposes abortion, he would not actively seek legislation to write those prohibitions into law.

Wilder, on the other hand, has outlined the most popular position, according to the polls. He is pro-choice but believes girls under age 18 should be required to get parental consent before obtaining an abortion. Wilder once opposed parental consent legislation, but reversed his position in 1985.